Are we going to witness an historical housing price correction amid sharpest rise in unemployment and social tension?...and the minimum you should know in order to protect yourself from this downturn from an economic, stock market and political point of view... with a pinch of humor and sarcasm.

Tuesday, 26 August 2008

A Controversy or How To Value Housing?

07.08.2008 : "Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili has accused Russia of carrying out an air raid on Georgian territory, saying Moscow was trying to provoke panic ...We are waiting for an official explanation from Russia"

13.08.2008 : "Georgia and Russia agree on truce. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has agreed an outline plan with Russia and Georgia to try to resolve their crisis"

20.08.2008 : "Russia has rejected a draft UN Security Council resolution on Georgia, saying it contradicted the terms of last week's ceasefire deal"

24.08.2008 : "A US warship has arrived in the Georgian port of Batumi carrying the first delivery of aid supplies by sea."

26.08.2008 : "Moscow Regions recognises the independence of Georgia's breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia."

27.08.2008 : "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meets his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao today as he seeks to muster support from Asian allies for Russia's recognition of Georgia's breakaway regions."

27.08.2008 : "British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is visiting Ukraine in an effort to build a "coalition against Russian aggression"."

What next?

I suppose Russia could not have choosen a better time. After all the U.S. and its allies are overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their financial system on the brink of collapse while Iran rearming itself make the world less safe than it was yesterday.

Coming back to earth, The Russian stock market has collapsed in the past 3 month, its currency the Rubble is weakening. The Baltic Economies are about to witness a "hard landing". So where could it leave the Finnish Export and economy? I guess toward a sharp downturn. I'm not even talking about the Finnish Internal consumption as up to now it mainly driven by credit and debt ("the Minsky moment"). One has to pay back at some point...

What would then be a value of "Housing" if event degenerates or bring further down the economic slump?

One have to bear in mind that it is very slow process, at anytime the direction could rapidly change in both direction, good or worse.

Disclaimer: All elements, statements or forecasts put forward in this article are purely fictious and are based mainly on cartoon type reading and non-credible newspaper like HS. If you feel offended by such reading, then don't read further this blog, go to the pub and have a lager. If you enjoy such article, then it's about time to see a psychologist as those idea are not real and should not be...well that was my disclaimer.

3 comments:

Andrew
said...

Slightly off topic but in praise of Finland, Apple is getting some bad publicity about its iphones and there is much debate now as to the nature of the problem. Is it software as apple claims or is it hardware?

But meanwhile on Friday my father in law is wanting to rush over to see us to show off his latest toy which is some kind of Nokia super duper internet browsing navigation device built into his cell phone and apparently it does work!

And Finnish unemployment is down.

Meanwhile outside of this kind of news it does appear that the world is about to end and that house prices are going to crash big time.

My father in law reported from his cell phone world communication centre that the Mayor of Helsinki said that Helsinki house prices will fall 30%

Makes me wonder if that is the *optimistic* spun sanitised version of the coming difficulties?

Finnish unemployement is down while layoff has accelerated. A big chunk of employed people came from the public sector or municipalities...I thought that the data were not worth to be analysed as it represents the rear mirror view of an economy once booming...

Apple or Nokia, at the end it's all about the consumers...or the emerging market. Should they slow consuming then profit will go down. Their consumption will be a function of the health of the global economy. It's a wildcard...Apple should not be underestimated...Same could be said about Nokia.

House price will correct (25%) but won't crash (50%) unless the economy collapsed and the geopolitical situation deteriorate as entertained in this article ;->

U.S. and European banks, already burdened by losses and concerns about their financial health, face a new challenge: paying off hundreds of billions of dollars of debt coming due.

At issue are so-called floating-rate notes -- securities used heavily by banks in 2006 to borrow money. A big chunk of those notes, which typically mature in two years, will come due over the next year or so, at a time when banks are struggling to raise fresh funds. That's forcing banks to sell assets, compete heavily for deposits and issue expensive new debt.